Sanjay of BhagavadGita
Sanjay is one of the central figures in BhagavadGita. His name appears in BhagavadGita a
number of times. He is the person who narrates to blind Dhrit’Raashtr as to what had been happening
at KuruKshetr.
By profession he was charioteer. He drove the chariot of Dhrit’Raashtr. He served Kshatriya
Dhrit’Raashtr and was born in a Shoodr family.
• If he was untouchable how Dhrit’Raashtr allowed him to touch his chariot or sit next to him
inside the palace when the war was in progress?
Manipulating human emotions by repetition
• ChristianWorld loves to repeat again and again, over and again, the term Untouchable with reference to Hindu society.
Right from the childhood
Three years ago1 I was shown a book that was taught in Italian schools. It was a thin book. It covered Hinduism on one page. The page was dominated by a picture and on the side there was some text in Italian language which I could not read. But the picture spoke volumes about Hinduism.
1 July 2002
Hinduism put at par with other primitive civilizations
Italian children from their childhood learned what Hinduism was all about from that page on Hinduism. Other pages were filled with such other primitive civilizations of the world (as Hinduism).
Untouchables and “The Naked Fakir”
The picture comprised of two persons. One was frail bodied Gandhi in his few inches-wide wrapping around his waistline. The other was a man looking in his eighties. His body frail, starving, stomach almost touching the back, so thin was the body. This was the portrayal of an Untouchable. The message was complete. The picture showed the pathetic condition of an untouchable in Hinduism with their messiah Gandhi who represented India.
An example of the Untouchable
Dome (‘o’ as in pope not as in done) is untouchable. He burned dead bodies. He lived in Shmashaan (crematorium) that are not like Westernized electric crematoriums with nice building and neat environment. The place would be such where there would be skulls around in open, bones, jackals and all such things. Place would not be used for human habitation.
What would be his living habits?
Dome would spend most of his time there. As a result his living habits would be quite unhygienic. His family would not be living far because a Dome may be needed any time, day or night; to burn dead bodies for people do not plan their death during working hours of Monday to Friday.
What would be the living habits of his family members?
His family lived with him and their living habits would not be any different from the dome
who would be the head of the family. So the entire family would have similar unhygienic living
conditions by normal standards.
Children of the family would live in the same environment; grow up playing in the crematorium
environment, as their father would keep himself available to receive dead bodies any time during
the day and night, weekday or weekend. His and families living depended on dead people as that
was his profession.
Why children would acquire father’s occupation?
People die in villages too for they cannot plan their death by going to cities. Therefore, Dome family would live in a village; children would grow up in village crematorium environment, which would be an open space; they would die in the same place. Their lives would revolve around that place. Thus, generation after generation they would be living at the same place. Children would acquire father’s occupation and the life would go on.
Why they would not feel anything wrong with their living habits?
From their birth till death they would live in the same environment and they would feel quite at home about it. They would not see anything wrong with their living habits because it would feel natural to them.
Why other people would not feel at home with their way of living?
But other people, who would have different occupation, would not feel at home about their way of living. It would not be natural to them because they would be raised in different environment primarily governed by each family’s own occupation.
Touching is the first point of contact in any lesson of hygiene
Why other people would not be comfortable in associating with them? If not for anything else, purely for hygienic reasons other people would not be comfortable associating with dome families. Touching is the first point of contact in any lesson of hygiene.
When it is unhygienic to touch raw vegetables in European departmental stores with bare hands
When I was in Europe and we went to a departmental store (2002), before picking up fruits and vegetables my host put on thin plastic hand gloves and requested me to do so. The explanation was that we could contaminate the uncut fruits and uncut raw vegetables with the germs that we carried on our hands from outside.
Though an average European would consider himself much cleaner than a Indian “Dome”
Well, our hands are generally clean, there is no dirt or dust or any such thing. We do not even burn dead bodies. Even with that kind of life style we could have passed on germs from our hands to raw vegetables and fruits by contact of touch!
This was European magnanimity in thought and action
The same European host felt so very appalled by the very thought of human untouchability. I wished my host was called upon to embrace a dome in his living quarters with his original living habits and then I would have wanted to see the European magnanimity of thought and action.
People who clean open drainage systems in cities
There are other people who clean the drainage system. These are open drains with human and animal filth and excrements and all other kind of dirty things in it. These are not the drainage systems of Western countries. People who do the job have to go inside the drain2 also, at times, when needed.
2 I have seen them (year 2007) doing so when required, it’s not imaginary
They can’t feel dirty about something that is part of their daily life
Otherwise also they would use their scanty tools to clean those drainage systems. If it is their occupation day in day out then they could not feel dirty about the drains. It is part of their daily lives.
No one looks at their bread with dirty looks
Generally husband and wife both would be working at it. Grown up children too would join them. It runs in the family for this is their livelihood and no one looks at their bread with dirty looks.
But yes, they don’t speak high-funda words like “dignity of labor”
When we talk of dignity of labor we seem to ignore that these people who do their jobs on drainages do not think otherwise. They may not talk these high-funda words for impressing others and impressing themselves but they understand and practice in their own life the dictum of dignity of labor.
They aren’t bothered but it’s others whose sympathy overflows!
They do not feel bad about what they do, for it earns them their daily bread. It is the ChristianEnglish educated people, who love to indulge in intellectual luxury, seem to be more perturbed about it than those who live with it.
They do it 7 days a week 365 days a year
Now these people who earn their bread from cleaning drainage systems, or for that matter cleaning the excrements of other people where there is no direct drainage system connecting each house to municipal sewerage, are in it day in day out, all seven days a week for people do not plan to excrete only during weekdays.
Why they do not feel the necessity to have a different kind of living habit while they are not at work
Naturally these people need to be on job all 365 days a year like it happens in many other
occupations too, particularly the high flying modern executive who works not only all seven
days but also night hours.
So when they work all 365 days a year they do not see any reason to have a different kind of
living environment and living habits than what they do most of their time.
Why, people engaged in other occupations, want to maintain distance from them
As a result their living habits are not so clean by normal standards and if not for anything else, at least for hygienic reasons people engaged in other occupation want to maintain a distance from them.
Let these champions of humanity be a bit more honest
Let these champions of humanity be a bit more honest in their compassion as expressed through their conduct than their empty talks in finding fault with Hinduism.
Love to see one of “those” embrace one of “these” while at work but not for media exposure and free publicity
Again, I would love to see one of those champions of human causes who talk vehemently against untouchability to embrace some of these men, not for applause that would naturally come to them when they do so and their photographs will be splashed all over media, but with total honesty in their heart and love for them; a kind of love that must be proved by actions other than this.
Let their overflowing emotions be tested on acid
Let them show their generosity and commitment by embracing the untouchables when these people are at work cleaning drainage or excreta and let them do it not in presence of those who would readily clap and do it every day for a year.
Who would be a Shoodr?
A Shoodr would be the one who was born in a family that offered services
to Braahman, Kshatriya, and Vaishya families.
If “all” Shoodrs were untouchable then how could they gain entry into Braahman, Kshatriya, Vaishya
houses as household help?
If such a person were to be untouchable then how could he or she get inside the house of a Braahman,
Kshatriya, or Vaishya family, and do household chores?
Christian missionary educators deliberately planted the lie in the minds
of the ChristianEnglish educated to uproot them from their roots
Christian missionaries and educators have preferred to deliberately create an image that all
Shoodrs were untouchables for it served a very significant ulterior motive of theirs. They also
raised crops of missionary educated Hindus in vast numbers, generation after generation, with
the same belief system firmly implanted in their minds.
Why Untouchable is such a sensitive word?
This term untouchable is significant in the context that the kind of sentiment it generates among today’s so-called educated mass is something like a crime against humanity.
A sinister design by the Christian missionary educators
The creation of generalized impression as if all Shoodrs were untouchables and its indiscriminate repetition in itself is a fraud against humanity.
Remember the European departmental store with gloves?
Remember the European departmental store which provided free hand gloves to be put on otherwise clean hands before picking up green vegetables and fruits from the shelves so that germs resident on clean hands do not affect the rest of the stock?
They would have maintained a safe distance, and Hindus did the same
Just visualize what such people would have done if they were to come close to a dome or to
a drain cleaner.
Do you think they would have embraced them? Common sense should tell you NO!
They would have maintained a safe distance from such people. Hindus did the same; they too maintained
a safe distance.
And, how do you measure the safe distance?
Now how do you define the safe distance? You may say 1.5 meter or you may say 5 feet. Well, do you expect people to a take a measuring tape and see how much distance they are maintaining? Obviously not!
Conveyed so simply that even a child should understand
There has to be a practical way of determining a safe distance. It should be conveyed in simplest possible manner that even a child should understand and remember.
And that would be the length of a shadow
And, that was the length of the shadow. The person whose occupation is such that it makes him or her unhygienic to come in close contact with, maintain a safe distance from that person, a distance that you can visually determine without any other aid.
And people hadn’t yet become Nishaachars
For shadow to be visible you would need the light of the day. Well, people hadn’t yet become Nishaachars (whose life began in the night). With advent of modern age, Nishaachars have grown disproportionately in number.
Ask those champions of human rights a few questions
Now, if your ChristianBritish educators taught you that it was a grave injustice towards humanity then please ask those champions of human rights a few simple questions.
• Do you remember the legendary Veer Savarkar who went to England to
study Law during his youth? Why was he and other Indian students, who went to England for obtaining
higher education, and had neat habits, and also wore clean clothes, and were attired in suit
and boot like any other ChristianBritish gentleman ~ why such students were asked to sit far
away from other suited-booted ChristianBritish people inside a restaurant?
• Why were they asked to sit in a place which was many times more than the length of a shadow
of a person?
• Where did they mortgage their sense of justice at that time? And why had it been a routine
affair not a stray case?
• If the Christians could insist on hygienic people to stay far away from themselves why Hindus
cannot keep themselves away from unhygienic people only by 5 feet?
• There Christians did not allow hygienic Hindus to sit close to them; here Hindus moved away
from unhygienic people.
How long would you want to stay a mental slave?
• O my Hindu fellow beings! How long do you want to remain a mental
slave of those who taught you nothing but to look down upon yourself.
• When will you acquire courage enough to ask those hypocrites the questions that they will
not be able to answer?
• When would you stop carrying the guilt that they have systematically cultivated in your psyche,
and then begin to take pride in your own heritage disregard the good and bad it has or had?
• When will you gather enough will power to throw away the glasses that they have put on your
eyes, and when would you start looking at things with an independent mind?
• When will you start loathing those who have brought great harm to you systematically cultivating
a guilt conscience within you that keeps you continually loathing your own heritage?
• Those who show you only your negatives, show them their negatives, and I can assure you that
they have plenty more of such negatives than you have. That is the only language they seem to
be capable of understanding.